Women in Coffee: Malawian Coffee Farmers

Here at Winans Chocolates + Coffees, we brew three main types of coffees: blends, single origins and flavored coffees. Blends are a blend of different single origin coffees. For example, our Winans Blend features coffee beans from Colombia, Costa Rica, Indonesia and Kenya. Single origin coffees are from a single geographic region within a specific country, like Colombia or Costa Rica. Flavored coffees are made by adding flavor extracts to create specific aromas and tastes, like our Highlander Grogg which boasts a rich butterscotch and caramel flavor.We’d like to highlight one of our single origin coffees in this blog post, Malawi Mzuzu. This coffee comes from the northern region of Malawi, a country in southeast Africa. The flavor profile of this coffee is described as a clean, bright cup with notes of citrus and peach. Malawi Mzuzu coffee beans are grown by family farmers in the Mzuzu Coffee Cooperative Union. This coffee cooperative has 3,000 members, 25% of them are women. The cooperative emphasizes gender equality and strives to empower women through coffee farming. The co-op does this through their Women in Coffee Programme and focuses on improving access to land for women, encouraging women in decision making at cooperatives and promoting the employment of women in the cooperative.

A coffee farmer with the motor bike she purchased with the proceeds of her coffee and women participating in co-op governance.

The cooperative supports community improvement projects such as the construction of a hospital with the help of coffee premiums. They also work to improve the quality of life of their members through sustainable farming, production and processing. They promote Fair Trade certification and are working towards organic certification. The Mzuzu cooperative also works to make sure that their members have decent housing, adequate ventilation, three decent meals a day, clothing for the family, adequate bedding for the family and that children are sent to decent schools. The co-op also encourages farmers to be organized and commercially-oriented, many have diversified their farms to include beekeeping and growing wheat to supplement their coffee income.Winans is happy to roast coffees from the Mzuzu Coffee Cooperative Union, not only because the beans make a delicious cup of coffee, but also because the co-op works for bettering the community of farmers who raise this amazing crop.
Winans would like to honor all the hardworking mothers who help make this co-operative a success in addition to what they do in their homes and communities every day.